Vel's Strategy Thread - Part Three

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Brother Vel my good man how goes it.

Been fine and have just recently aquired CIV3, as such I think I'm destined to yet another gaming addiction.

As I am coming with a fresh new look to a new game I thought I might add my two cents.

Coming from SMAC and CIV2 experiences I thought CIV3 would be a piece of cake. CIV3 appeared at first glance to be a CIV2 game with eye candy so I thought foolishly apply all CIV2 stategems and teh game should be a proverbial piece of cake, right? Wrong. CIV3 is a unique experience unto itself.

The first paradigm in old CIV2 was to find a way out of despotism ASAP to Monarchy. Now I find myself actually looking for means to postpone the switch to a more advanced government until such time as I have Rex'd and built rudimentary infrastructure. No longer is a beeline to Monarchy a smart tech tree move. Usually my first governmental change happen whilst I'm climbing throught the middle ages. If I play a religious faction err.. civ, then I might be tempted to switch earlier and more often else the 5-8 turn anarchy penalty makes my switches as infrequent as I can manage.

Second new paradigm is the whole strategic resource thing. I love it. Denial of resources becomes such an incredibly effective tactic. I need not go into the details but it simply changes the whole game. Kudos to firaxis on this one. I only wish that for realism sake they had considered the need to have more than one iron resource to create 30+ swordsman. Having just one requisite resource(s) in your box allows an infinite amount of unit and/or rail builds. This seems a bit unrealistic. Perhaps the chance of resource depletion should be affected by number of units/rails built.

Anyway I see you've been busy as usual. Good luck and good civving.


As always

Your humble student

Og

[Velociryx]

Brother Og! Merry Christmas to you, and I'm glad to see that you're back here at 'poly! Your absence here and over at the Portal has been missed!

How's the family? Well I trust?

Ahhhh....Civ3.....yes....it has definitely kept me busy. Two principle projects in the works....the on-going strat thread, eventually leading to a Civ3 Strat Guide (despite Prima/Infogrames' shenanigans thus far!), and the Mod-proposal being discussed over in the General Section. Head that way when you get a bit, and see what you think of our ideas! (I've actually got a fledgling Civ3 Section started up at the Portal too, where the Master thread for the mod resides, as well as some of the currently raging debates on various design points).

I agree with both your points on minimizing the total number of government switches if playing a non-religious faction (lol....not to worry, I slip like that all the time! heh!), and with the no-monarchy beeline....Actually, in my games of civ3 thus far, I've never run for monarchy....skipped over it for Republic, and later on, Dem. I can see that it has its uses, but with the extreme power of pop-rushing that early infrastructure, the usefulness seems limited to me.

And, we're also of the same mind about resources. IMO, it's one of the BEST new features in the game!

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Ozy: Hopefully, when the dust settles, we'll have nearly a dozen new techs, and every tech on the tree will do SOMETHING! That is one of the biggest gripes I have with the Ancient Era....these techs....these advances rest at the bedrock of our entire history....there's NO reason that I can think of to have stepping stone techs in the ancient era. Sure...some techs will do more than others, but....I dunno....with the total number of techs being a bit on the light-side, I figure we gotta make every single one count!

-=Vel=-

[Kinjiru]

Og my man, good see a few posts from you over here. We need some more old timers over here to keep Vel's head from swelling too much!

Anyways, a new post on the last thread (Vel's Strats Part Duex) got me thinking about the power of Mobilization. It hasn't been talked about too much here, and I admit, I haven't experimented too much with it myself. My first couple attempts were abject failures.

However, it seems like it might be a method to stay in a Democracy and still carry on a Limited War. I don't think it would work out too well if using an OW (Oscillating War) strat, since you would not want to stay in a wartime mobilization for too long (and you can only revert when a peace is declared), but by the time you get to Democracy, you should probably be through with that part of the game anyway (unless you are trying to use OW on a second or third continent).

Then again, it just might work out great when combining the two. It all depends on the long-term effects of using a wartime mobilization and if the effects are cumulative. If not, then you could move your pre-existing troops into place, declare war, mobilize, crank out a set of troops to meet your immediate objectives, take a few cities while cranking out a second set for use in the next war, force a peace, demobilize, spend 5 turns moving your second set of troops into position (or close to it) while rebuilding your economy a bit and then start teh next war.

The key we need to figure out is how much downtime you need between wars to let the negative effects of mobilization dissipate. And a second question is are there any hidden costs to mobilizing?

Anyone have some insights to share on this topic?

**************************
Edited to correct some appalling grammatical errors...

[Cookie Monster]

Hi all,

Has anyone checked out the "War Academy" section of Civ3 on www.civfanatics.com? Here are a couple of zip files of some of the strat guides to be found there. Both are fairly good reads but I couldn't help but compare these guys' styles to Vel's.

Velociryxs' strat guide has a level of detail that's quite impressive. Also to be found is Vel's insight to the core game mechanics. Very interesting stuff indeed! But these other guys are ok. Check 'em out and enjoy!

[Quurgoth]

Mobilization

Wartime mobilization is much more complex that I thought before I clicked the button.

It is tough to hold cities taken during wartime mobilization. The inability to build culture-producing buildings means a very high likelihood of reversion to the parent culture in SHORT order. I had a size 11 city with SIX units in it revert to the Egyptians once... never again.

Solution: bomb the @$!$~#! out of any city you plan to take and hold during wartime. Make sure to maintain at least one unit per population point within the city.

WARNING: forcing peace on an opponent is tough. If they won't hear your envoy, you'll remain at wartime mobilization. My war period went on for quite awhile, at least 12 turns, during which time I took a decent number of cities, dealt with a reversion, and advanced toward the capital. 12 turns is a loooooong time for cities with high production, although I did use this to my benefit by setting a number of cites on Wealth.

[Cookie Monster]

Couldn't fit both zips onto one message so here's the other one.

[pchang]

Mobilization

Mobilization while in democracy seems to increase the rate of war weariness. I use it only when I am in a democracry, being attacked, and have not built up a sufficient military to defend myself. Basically, if you have to use mobilization, you have messed up somewhere.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Kinjy,

How the heck are ya? Man it almost seems as if we have a reunion going on.

I had a few bad experiences so far with mobilization. My first was that I blindly checked the mobilizationbox and wondered why the heck I couldn't build anymore cathedrals and/or universities (teach me not to read the manual) Then I futilely tried to move back to normalcy only to find I couldn't b/c I was still at war. Then the darn AI wouldn't come to the bargaining table. As a consequence the war I was prosecuting was a intercontinental one and I lost almost every city I had worked so hard to capture to reversion b/c I couldn't rush in culture facilities. Talk about frustrating.

Ahh well so goes the learning process. Been great fun so far. Good to see some familiar faces other than the omnipresent Vel (No offense Vel)


Good Civving,

Og

[Arrian]

I think mobilization can be useful only in specific situations. Like pchang says, generally it is a last resort, and means you're in serious trouble. One situation where it could be useful is this:

You are economically strong and scientifically advanced, but have a small army. You intend to fight a major war, or see one on the horizon. There is a small, weak civ nearby that could be wiped out quickly (say less than 5 turns total). Mobilize while still at peace, and build up a massive army. Hit the weak neighbor, wiping them out (thus re-entering peace) and de-mobilize. Now you have a strong army and a few new cities. You can now fight conventionally.

-Arrian

[Skanky Burns]

I've found mobilization useful in certain circumstances. In one game i was playing as the peaceful builder, and all my cities had every improvement. However, the Greeks decided that dominating the world was a good idea. Due to a lack of saltpeter, i couldnt go on the offensive, and was playing a defensive war for some time. Bombarding the invading infantry with artillery, and attacking with the infantry i was building. Not mobilized yet.

Then i discovered tanks. Finally. As i had no offensive units, I mobilized, and was pumping them out like there was no tomorrow. Easily blitzed through the Persians, and didn't have trouble holding their cities as they were small due to conscription. Also as i had been a builder most of the game, my cultural total was higher than any other civ's.

After defeating most of Persia, i made peace with them (and got 2 far-away cities i couldn't be bothered capturing). Then i began invading the monolith that was Greece, 3 times the size of my empire. I soon discovered that i wasnt mobilized anymore, and had to go back to it. About half-way through the invasion of Greece, i made peace with some other civ, and then started building cultural improvements in my newest cities.

I find mobilization useful when you have strong culture, very built-up cities but a smaller than needed military.

[David Weldon]

I don't find mobilization useful even in the situations that Skanky and others have described. I expect that those are about the only situations in which it _could_ be useful, but I much prefer to use mercenaries. I also tend to have perfectionist cities with a very small military, but as soon as I need to fight (or as soon as I have an military tech edge, regardless of whether a fight is really _necessary_) I spend a turn or two without any science research, and then buy all the units I could ever hope to use. The gold/shield rate in the late game is so out of whack that I have been able to buy 10 tanks or so in the first turn they're available (if you have some prod. started to avoid the double cost penalty for brand new units). This was on a standard map with only about 25 total cities.

I prefer giving up some science to mobilizing for a number of reasons. First, I normally have the tech lead anyway, and if I just got the enabling military tech I wanted then I can easily afford to slow down a little. Second, I don't suffer any unhappiness or extra war-weariness effects. Third, I'm able to continue rushing city improvements in the cities that aren't completely perfect yet. Fourth, I'm able to rush culture into newly captured border towns. Fifth, I can rush harbors into new overseas cities. Sixth, I can rush new military into frontier cities or overseas cities that may not have railway connections. Seventh, I find that my core towns can produce tanks or bombers or infantry in two turns anyway, and mobilizing doesn't reduce that to one turn, so what's the point?

I've never been so bad off that I had to use it, and I've always found gold to be better than additional production for producing military units. Of course in a real pinch you could do both, but I don't like to give up the non-military production if I don't need to.

[vmxa1]

Ok all of you who are using the patch, why does a city go to civil disorder and then you look and see no unhappy citizens? Nex turn things go to normal? I figure it is war, but I have no indications.
Another point that irks me is the AI civs showing furious with me and then asking for trades. Why would they expect to do business with someone and show a furious attitude? Would it not make sense to be at least polite first? I am talking about times when they are far below you in status. I always refuse to deal with them if they are furious, what do I care what they want.

[Aeson]

Are you using governers to manage your population's mood? If so, its still possible for a city to go into disorder under some conditions. The governer will instantly switch the offending workers to specialists before you can see the unhappy people who were causing the disorder.

[Aeson]

I like using mobilization! When I go to war, it's all the way Every city is either building military to destroy the enemy, or settlers to claim territory in their wake. I like razing cities, so no need to rush cultural improvements. My last game I was able to go from almost no military, to a huge force that wiped out the rest of the world in less than 20 turns (well over 100 AI cities). Would have taken me half again as long to do without mobilization.